Iván Alvariño and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Emanuel Bonda has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Flandria have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Martín López falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The dugout2 Aug 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑3 Bautista Vidal left the room before anybody could ask which.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Flandria will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Flandria have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Flandria, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Algeciras for Gastón Silvero was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Flandria have gone to Racing Club with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Joan Esteche has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Flandria can pretend not to have heard.
1 for Pablo Ayala, marked 7.53, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Iván Alvariño and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Words at Flandria training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nazareno Diosquez is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Flandria has been clear about where Matías Mariatti stands, which is more than many ever get.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Franco Costa has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Faustino Barone is in the works
36 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Flandria lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Iván Alvariño and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Martín López falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Flandria are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Flandria, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nobody at Flandria will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Flandria, another week without a signature from Emanuel Murillo.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Barracas Central, and it is not being withdrawn.
Gastón Campi and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. José Duarte is living that version at Barracas Central, and it tends to show in the first month.
Talleres paid $220.0K and Barracas Central took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Barracas Central have made the call to Atlético Mineiro. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Flandria lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Flandria can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Flandria will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Gastón Silvero was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $140.0K. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
Flandria ran out of time with Comunicaciones. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Words at Flandria training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Martín López is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The words a physio says slowly. 53 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Everything agreed with Barracas Central, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Flandria this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Flandria training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Franco Costa is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Flandria will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Barracas Central have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The offer from Chaco For Ever for Nicolás Capraro was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Barracas Central they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fernando Tobio was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Barracas Central they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jhonatan Candia was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Elías Pereyra is on it.
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Barracas Central has to find a result from somewhere.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Barracas Central they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fernando Tobio is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Joel Flecha was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Position 13 and 8 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Barracas Central is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Fernando Tobio and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Gastón Silvero is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Gastón Silvero will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Barracas Central the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
21 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Elías Pereyra is on it.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Barracas Central is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Barracas Central this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jhonatan Candia is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Esteban Rolón has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
21 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Barracas Central, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nobody at Barracas Central will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.